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Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 12th of April 2022

Hello everyone, and welcome back to EUIV Dev Diaries! It’s been a while since the last one, but now we think it is due time to address a 1.33 Update Retrospective, and talk a bit with you about what we’ve been doing, and the topics concerning the community.

In the past month, since the 1.33 Update full release, the Team has been working mostly on the Post Release Support (PRS) of it. You may have noticed that our process in the Bug Reports subforum has changed a bit, and that the QLOC Team that gives us external QA support is directly addressing tickets, although the person in charge of it is @AldathPDX , our QA Project Coordinator. Devs aren’t going to disappear from the subforum, though; we will still be going to interact directly with the reports when needed, but this way we’re becoming more efficient in what we really want to focus on - improving the state of the game. Speaking of QA, we have opened a position for an Internal QA Tester, as you may know. If you want to join us at Paradox Tinto, and you think you have the requirements for it, you can apply to it here!

Regarding 1.33 PRS, we decided to prioritize the usually tricky and hard-to-catch issues of OOS and CTD for the 1.33.3 patch released last week. We really wanted to focus on these issues, as we shared the concerns about MP games becoming more unstable. And, precisely because of this, we also decided not to introduce gameplay changes in this patch, as we preferred to release the most stable version possible, and fixing and testing other issues may have delayed this patch even further. We know this may be controversial, but we think it’s the most beneficial course of action for the game at this moment.

This doesn’t mean that changes are set in stone, as we want to continue gathering feedback from the community. We have to say that we are pretty happy with the results of the 1.33 Open Beta that was handled in the month prior to the release. We fixed a lot of issues thanks to the direct feedback gathered from you, the players, and we were able to make some further tweaks and changes quickly thanks to this. We think this has been a useful tool, and we’re open to using Open Betas again for future updates.

Going back to the gameplay changes topics, there are a couple that we know have been concerning the community in the past weeks: Combat changes, and allied AI behavior. The last one is more related to the kind of situation that may appear after improving it: now the AI acts on its own interests, which may not be the player’s, and that are different from how it behaved previously. This is something that happened in a few fields when improving AI for 1.33 Update, and that we rollback while developing it; but sometimes, this kind of behavior appears. We will be targeting AI again in the following months, so your game experience is quite valuable about this point. About the former, well, we already said that we wanted to “shake” a bit how Combat works, and our position is that we want extra feedback before committing to new changes. So, please, we want some constructive feedback in this thread regarding both topics, with your opinion on what works/what doesn’t, to further improve the gameplay experience (note: posts of the type “these changes are bad, just revert to previous version” are much less useful for us than those tackling the current situation and suggesting further changes for improvement).

The other big gameplay topic we addressed in 1.33 was rebalancing and adding a some extra content for the Eastern Asian regions, specifically on the Empire of China and Mandate of Heaven mechanics. We’re quite content with the outcome, as we were able to improve those in the Open Beta, and the issues we’ve been fixing regarding it in the PRS are not very concerning. Anyway, again, further suggestions are welcome, although more on the topic of polishing balance changes, than in adding more content, as we have started to move on to new things.

So yes, we’re already working on new content to be added to another new update! We’ve been spending some development time in the last weeks planning that, so because of it we’ve been a bit more ‘shy’ here. And now we have good and bad news. Good news is that we’re also recruiting another Content Designer for the studio! So, if you’re interested, you can apply here. The bad news is that you will have to wait a bit longer to take a look at the new content, as we’re in a very early development phase. In two weeks, after Easter vacation is over, we’ll present you the Roadmap for the new content, and we’ll start communicating again on a weekly basis.

That’s all for now! We hope to receive detailed feedback from you from 1.33, to keep working on it, as we’ll be reading your comments. See you!
 
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I absolutely agree that while new content is always desired and important to keeping the vibrancy of the community, fixing the underlying issues, bugs, and under-the-hood systems of the game is best for the long-term health of EU4, even after the end of development. If every new DLC just launches to yet more backlash due to the systemic issues of AI, game code limitations, and bugs, then it is good to first address those core issues. Hopefully this spells good things for what is to come.
 
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The current AI coding doesn't apply sufficient weighting to converting religion during peace deals, and gives way too much priority to pillaging capitals decades if not centuries after the use-by date for this mechanic has expired.

At the very least, AI should have an increased weighting to converting religion during peace deals as part of the Religious League War. I just watched AI Austria defeat the Protestants one by one and didn't convert a single nation to Catholicism.
 
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Hi new to the forum, cause i wanted to report a super annoying bug, dont know where this place seems somewhat fitting: The bohemia mission tree with the Brandenburg and Saxony are kind of busted in german language. It tells you that you dont get any penalties whatever you do, which then made me pick them as vasall and i did get the debuff however. I guess the translation has to be updated? ruined my game somewhat cause imperial authority went downhill. Should really be fixed IMO
 
I would say that regarding AI behavior it may be helpful to show what they prioritize in a war such as particular forts. I think this would be helpful for offensive wars/ defensive wars when an AI calls you in and tells you where they need help such as besieging or liberating a capital. This would really only be possible if the AI has a cohesive war plan or can communicate with the player.

Otherwise, if new provinces aren't being added, for future content, I'd recommend adding Hudson Bay Company events to GB in Northern Canada. Including a few missions such a "northwest passage" or "settle the Hudson Bay" which end up increasing development and gives a small trade bonus in the area. Also possibly making it its own colonial region of Rupert's land.

I would also split the Cascadia colonial region by adding Alaska and adding a few events and missions to the Russian mission tree about settling America and establishing the Russian-American Company, once more giving development and trade bonuses. I would also make the Bering Strait or Alaska into its own trade node.

I think that these would help strengthen the balance of the game since Spain never declines with their colonization. Furthermore players have a strong preference of playing major nations and this would help add some mid-late game flavor for both nations and regions of the world.

I also would love to see a Swedish Carolean mechanic and Sweden flavor pack to match Russian Streltzy or Ottoman Janissaries.

Finally, Denmark, Sweden and Austria really need a/ more monuments



I
 
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Hi new to the forum, cause i wanted to report a super annoying bug, dont know where this place seems somewhat fitting: The bohemia mission tree with the Brandenburg and Saxony are kind of busted in german language. It tells you that you dont get any penalties whatever you do, which then made me pick them as vasall and i did get the debuff however. I guess the translation has to be updated? ruined my game somewhat cause imperial authority went downhill. Should really be fixed IMO
You should report bugs in the bug reports forum. But I don't see a problem with the german translation. The german text seems to be an accurate translation of the english text which says "This Subject will be considered Legitimate in the eyes of the Empire, conferring no penalty in Imperial elections.". Neither the english nor the german text claim that you get no penalties. It just says that you don't get a penalty in the imperial elections. And AFAIK this works. It doesn't say that you won't get the penalty to imperial authority for having an elector as vassal.
 
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Hi new to the forum, cause i wanted to report a super annoying bug, dont know where this place seems somewhat fitting: The bohemia mission tree with the Brandenburg and Saxony are kind of busted in german language. It tells you that you dont get any penalties whatever you do, which then made me pick them as vasall and i did get the debuff however. I guess the translation has to be updated? ruined my game somewhat cause imperial authority went downhill. Should really be fixed IMO

You should report bugs in the bug reports forum. But I don't see a problem with the german translation. The german text seems to be an accurate translation of the english text which says "This Subject will be considered Legitimate in the eyes of the Empire, conferring no penalty in Imperial elections.". Neither the english nor the german text claim that you get no penalties. It just says that you don't get a penalty in the imperial elections. And AFAIK this works. It doesn't say that you won't get the penalty to imperial authority for having an elector as vassal.
I am currently on a Bohemia run, and I chose to convert them into PUs because I'm on an Atwix's Legacy achievement run. As per the event says I get no debuffs to elections, and IA gain isn't affected either. Vassal electors give -0.1 IA gain for each vassalized elector, but I could see an exception to this for the two Bohemian missions. I'm not sure if it is doable in the current Empire mechanics, but it definitely isn't a bug, so maybe instead try writing a suggestion in the proper subforum.
 
Hello everybody again! Thanks for your all your comments in the thread, we've not been able to answer them before because of vacation time plus some difficulties we've been having in the office (re: ongoing renewals), but now we've got the time to catch up, finally.
I can't say i am not disappointed. While there isn't anything obviously wrong with what @Pavía said i somehow expected a lenghty post with different parts about what each team did in the last 2 months where there was complete radio silence. Instead it is an ultra-short diary consisting of "we did fixes", which is great and of "pitch us ideas and feedback about the combat system although half the forum in the last month consisted of little else". Of course there are times in development where there is not much new content to show but there is always an interesting dev diary to write. Show us the work process of a content designer from research to implementation for example. Get a programmer to write a small but in depth article about an annoying bug and how it was found out and fixed. Get a senior dev in talking about how new hires are worked in. Pull the most frequented suggestions from the suggestions forum and write down some thought experiments about implementation. There is always something to talk about.

But this is just stepping on stage after the audience was waiting for 2 months and shouting "keep waiting".

P.S. please flag the QA team in the bug report subforum as developers, so that we can actually use the "show developers response" button
It would be nice if we got regular DDs again, even when there is no new content to present.

I for one would be quite happy just to hear how the team has been dealing with mundane things such as fixing the latest bug, or thinking about how to rebalance this or that mechanic. Keeping more open and active channels of communication benefits both sides, I think.
@BjornB has already explained this quite well. TBH, this is something that we were already discussing internally, so we'll see if in the future we find out possible to expand on this type of content between updates, or not (no promises about it, sorry).

PD: We're reviewing if it's possible to change the status of QA team for the bug reports subforums. ;)
Is 1.34 another bug fix focus patch or will it me a more traditional update (I know you cannot tell us yet what content you are planning)?

For me the exportToVariable bug is the biggest one - a fair propotion of my EU4 is Anbennar for more variety.
1.34 will be a more traditional update, following the spirit of 1.32 (new content + bugfixing & gamebalance on the free update). You will have more information about it on the roadmap we're going to share with on next Tuesday's DD. :)
@Pavía

Any chance that colonial nations that expand beyond their colonial regions, create a new colonial nation? It is a bit problematic to see a colonial nation (ex: Colombia) have land in the Caribbean, Mexico, and even enclaves in North America proper. I think instant expansion of a colonial nation from one region into another should be land that goes to either the overlord or becomes a new colonial nation in that region if the province minimum is achieved.

Also the Portuguese AI should strive for going to Brazil more than Spain.
We will continue reviewing AI performance for next update, but can't compromise on specific changes yet.
Any chance we are given the "Repay Loan" button again? It's so much clunkier to mentally calculate our debt since the change. (especially in the case of checking interest rates!)
Yes, we are going to change this again for the next update.
fix dog performance please, especially past 1600
I already compiled my feedback in the Open Beta threads, so I won't post them again here. I think I did "my part of the job" nicely and it took me a bunch of time. You should read these topics again 'cause there is a lot of good suggestions from the community down there.

That said, I'm concerned by the state of the game right now. Performances are really bad on 1.33 where there was a little step forward with 1.32. To say it plainly: I can't play anymore, despite my willing to do so. The fact that you won't adress performance issues before you jump into 1.34 make me fear the worst. How are you gonna fix older issues and others introduced by the 1.33 patch, if they are drowned into new content with its own early problems?
It also goes without saying that I won't be able to buy new DLC, and help with feedback through the public beta phase, if I can't play under good conditions. Namely, smooth gaming experience...

I think you really need a clean 1.33.4 so it will be easier to quickly identify potential new issues, especially regarding performances.
Performance improvements are another issue we have in our plans, we're trying to figure out on ways to making it possible (as they comprehend very different game areas).
Are there not two months worth of topics on this forum about the combat changes already? Surely not all of those posts are just "1.33 combat sucks change it back." Hopefully you aren't saying all of those posts go into the circular file and only ones from now on "count."

IMO the biggest problem with the combat changes is that battles simply take way, way too long now. All of the other under-the-hood changes like damage calcualation and whatnot can be ironed out.
About the combat changes, we've taking notes of all the comments received about this in the last weeks/months (not only in this thread, but detailed posts as some shared here are really helpful for us), as tuning up the system is one of our priorities for the next update.
Hi, I haven't seen this addressed much, but since 1.31 (IIRC) a change to armies caused the splitting mechanic to not work properly. Before, if you had a 16k stack and would repeatedly box-select+split army 16 times you would have 16 1k stacks. Now (and in 1.32) if I try to do the exact same sequence, I end up with a small amount of split armies, and unable to split further without clicking the button manually:
View attachment 828572
Please fix this.

Also going to plug my culture-related discussion thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ian-should-be-in-the-byzantine-group.1519290/
I think there's some good stuff in there, quick fixes too.
We'll take a look on this issue, too.
Any fix planned for Independence Wars? Rebellious vassals/junior partners almost never declare independence. This means Timurids never break up, Wu and Yue never rebels from Ming if released, and worst of all, no independent Sweden.
As others have mentioned, there is a general problem with AI evaluation of independence wars at the moment. But in the specific case of Wu and Yue this is compounded by their newfound hatred of each other from the Chinese Kingdom reform causing them to not ally each other. Even if the first issue is fixed, the main problem for each of these will still be that the other one will be called in to defend Ming, moreso than Ming itself.
Yes! We're taking care of vassals and personal unions, as we want to polish the Chinese changes we made for 1.33, and because it will also make sense with the new content we are developing.
I was disappointed when in reply to my first post Gnivom thought it was about natives attacking colonial nations and not the bug with the stealing land by federations without war like it was later explained here https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...iary-12th-of-april-2022.1519964/post-28207885
This was mentioned in many threads and by this reaction I think you may not be aware of the bug. I understand that not every change will be liked by everybody - it's just impossible but the community is reporting bugs and it seems you didn't notice this one.
Taking a look on it by the Team, also.
 
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1- Please correct the lack of synchronization in multiplayer games as soon as possible
2- If the multiplayer of this game is similar to the CK3, it will be great, we will no longer need to stop to join other players, and the quality of the game will be very high.
 
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Hello
In the next update, please separate the mechanics of the Native Federation from their private buildings so that the modder can use that amazing mechanic.
We really need this
I do not mean to separate the mechanics of the federations from the natives
I mean, this mechanic should be such that it can be used in other types of governments without changing the buildings
 
Not sure if this was introduced in 1.33 or earlier, but the AI seems much more stupid nowadays in the way it always targets the weakest enemy lands no matter how far they are from their own provinces. In a religious league war I recently won with ease after a great number of countries, including France and Milan, went out of their way to invade northern Russia. By the time they got there their own forts were going down fast. This is not good AI behavior and it most definitely isn't fun.
 
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